ARTICLES ABOUT BROKERAGE BY DATE - PAGE 2

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Strong sales of fee-based managed investment accounts by Wells Fargo & Co. brokers fueled a 41 percent jump in net income in the bank's "Wealth, Brokerage and Retirement" unit during the first quarter. The fourth-largest U.S. bank company, which emphasizes the diversity of its business model, said Friday that growth in managed account advisory fees and other market-sensitive revenue generated $10 billion of noninterest income for Wells in the three months ending March 31. The fees, which also included trading and investment gains in the bank's own portfolio, helped offset declines in mortgage lending.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Six weeks after being named to lead Morgan Stanley's brokerage force of more than 16,000 financial advisers, managing director Shelley O'Connor has streamlined the sales organization and replaced some key executives. In a memo to the firm's wealth management division employees, O'Connor said a tour of the branches at the world's biggest brokerage convinced her that local managers need more power, resources and the ability to work more efficiently. She also is reducing expenses by shrinking the company's three geographic divisions in the United States to two and trimming the regions that report to the division heads to eight from 12. Bill McMahon and Rick Skae remain as Morgan Stanley's two division heads, running the western and eastern divisions, respectively.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Charles Schwab Corp awarded its namesake chairman and its chief executive, Walt Bettinger, a pay increase of 23.7 percent last year, the brokerage firm said in a regulatory filing on Friday. The compensation reflected a year in which the executives' long-term strategy of expanding beyond simple inexpensive stock commissions into a broader range of services bore fruit, the company's compensation committee wrote. Bettinger, 53, who has been president and chief executive of the San Francisco-based firm since 2008, was paid $12.73 million, including $4.4 million in cash and $8.3 million in stock and option awards.

(Reuters) - A proposal by Wall Street's industry-funded watchdog to ramp up oversight of securities brokerages could expose clearing firms to more enforcement actions and lawsuits, lawyers say. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has said it wants to review, on a continuous basis, vast quantities of data from the clearing firms that brokerages hire to settle customers' buy and sell orders. But some clearing firms are raising concerns that the fledgling plan could ensnare them in legal hassles.

(Reuters) - Bitcoin can expose people to significant losses, fraud and theft, and the lure of a potential quick profit should not blind investors to the virtual currency's significant risks, a brokerage industry watchdog warned on Tuesday. In an investor alert titled "Bitcoin: More than a Bit Risky," the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) said recent events such as the bankruptcy of Bitcoin exchange operator Mt. Gox have spotlighted some of the currency's risks. "Speculators drawn to bitcoin trading should understand that bitcoin prices have fluctuated widely, and wildly," said Gerri Walsh, FINRA's vice president for investor education.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Merrill Lynch, whose army of stockbrokers has shrunk almost 15 percent since it was bought by Bank of America Corp five years ago, replaced or transferred more than a dozen of its senior sales executives last week as it seeks to increase productivity. A Merrill spokesman insisted that there is nothing unusual about the management changes that were announced internally by John Thiel, the head of the wealth management and private banking unit. "This time of year we normally see a combination of natural attrition, retirement and redeployment," he said, noting that Wall Street managers typically leave after collecting bonuses for the previous year.

March 7 (Reuters) - BB&T Corp's brokerage unit said on Friday it hired two veteran advisers from Morgan Stanley . John Lewis and Joe Bartholomew will form Lewis Group of BB&T Scott & Stringfellow. They managed $900 million in client assets at Morgan Stanley. Lewis has 22 years of investment experience, while Bartholomew has 17 years. Christy Jockle, a spokeswoman at Morgan Stanley, confirmed the duo had left the firm, but declined to comment on their move to BB&T.

High-speed trader Infinium Capital Management has stopped trading and is working to wind down the company, President Mark Palchak told Reuters on Thursday. Infinium sold five trading desks and some physical assets to foreign-exchange brokerage FXCM Inc, according to FXCM. FXCM and a subsidiary have hired 48 Infinium employees to trade for a new joint venture, V3 Markets, Palchak said in an interview. The total sale price was not disclosed. It included approximately $11.9 million owed by Infinium to FXCM, according to the brokerage.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Some U.S. brokerages are grappling with unexpectedly weak stock trading by retail clients this year, eroding commission revenue and clipping the flow of new money into fee-based accounts. Although TD Ameritrade Holding Corp and other discount brokerage firms said earlier this month that their clients traded heavily in January and early February, executives at brokerage giant Wells Fargo Advisors and regional firm Stifel Financial Corp are less optimistic. After the S&P 500 stock index gained almost 30 percent last year, hopes soared in the brokerage industry that clients would abandon bank accounts and bond investments yielding low single- digit returns in favor of stock investing.

By Karen Freifeld and Chris Peters Feb 26 (Reuters) - Eighteen brokerages, including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Citigroup, agreed to end their participation in analyst survey programs as a result of the New York Attorney General's investigation into the early release of Wall Street analyst sentiment. The agreement with the New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office comes less than two months after BlackRock Inc, the world's largest asset manager, agreed to end its analyst survey program worldwide.